


Love's the Burning Boy

by MilesHibernus



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, February Whump, Febuwhump 2021, Fic of Fic, Gen, M/M, cw: eye trauma, cw: ptsd, cw: torture, self-indulgent character insert ho!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28824570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: Prompt fills for the2021 Febuwhump Prompts Challenge.  Some of these, um, got a bit away from me...
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 19
Kudos: 30





	1. It's Been a Real Week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #1 mind control, #20 betrayal

“I have to admit, mate, I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of this one,” said Flynn. More precisely, he wasn’t sure _if_ he was going to get out of it, and his odds looked worse with every passing hour. Not that it mattered; his conversation-partner didn’t answer.

That was probably because they’d been dead for at least a decade. Flynn thought it was admirable dedication to the ambiance to leave a skeleton in a prison cell, but also a bit unsanitary. He shivered and clutched his bent knees more tightly to his chest. The guards had left him his trousers, shirt and drawers - after all items had been thoroughly searched - but his boots, socks, scarf and greatcoat had been confiscated and frankly it was damned chilly in the cell. There wasn’t even a cot or a pile of straw to sit on, and the stone floor leeched his warmth away as fast as he could generate it.

In the corridor, footsteps sounded. Flynn sat up straight. The steps approached his cell and stopped, and even now it made Flynn’s heart a little lighter to hear Mathias’s voice saying, “Open it.”

The door swung open with the traditional creak and Mathias stepped into Flynn’s line of sight. He turned to address, Flynn assumed, one of the door guards. “Stay out here, and lock the door after me.”

“Master Shaw -” the guard began, but Mathias overrode her.

“He’s been down here for a week and he’s chained to the wall. Are you suggesting that’s more than I can handle?” He raised his eyebrows in a way that looked like idle curiosity, but the guard stammered out her _Yessir_.

Then Mathias was in the cell and the door was groaning closed behind him, and Flynn spent a second just _looking_. Mathias seemed to be fine, but the expression on his face was a perfect blank that Flynn had seen on precisely two other occasions: in Duskwood during the necromancer’s attack, and a week ago.

When he’d arrested Flynn on charges of treason against the Alliance in the Tides-damned throne room of Stormwind Keep, on the personal orders of Anduin Wrynn.

Flynn still didn’t know what exactly he was meant to have been treason-ing, but he supposed it didn’t matter; he knew a set-up when it was waved in his face. Nor did he know why Anduin had suddenly taken a severe enough dislike to lead to this, and that didn’t matter either.

“So,” he said, as lightly as he could. “Come to talk about our relationship?”

Mathias looked down on him for a long moment and said, “I’m here to carry out your sentence.”

“My _sentence_? I’ve not even had a trial! You can’t tell me Himself is alright with this.” He didn’t feel it necessary to ask what the sentence was; you didn’t send a master assassin into someone’s prison cell in order to administer a slap on the wrist.

“The king found the evidence compelling enough to dispense with the formalities,” said Mathias.

Flynn gaped. He couldn’t help it. “The king,” he said. “You sure we’re talking about the same bloke? Blond, blue eyes, pushes the Light like nobody’s business but can’t raise a proper beard yet, name of Anduin?”

“ _King Wrynn_ told me to inform you that he regrets this, but you brought it upon yourself by your actions.”

“Mathias…” Flynn began, and immediately foundered on the rocks of Mathias’s non-expression. He couldn’t make himself believe that Mathias planned to kill him. Right here, right now, with neither trial nor fanfare. The evidence was pretty bloody compelling, but he couldn’t feel it in his gut.

Mathias pulled something out of a belt pouch and lobbed it at him. Flynn caught it on reflex and discovered a small vial, filled with something in a soothing shade of lavender. He looked from the vial to Mathias. “And what’s this when it’s at home?”

“It’s a sedative. It’ll knock you out quickly and thoroughly. I asked the king for clemency, and he granted it this far.”

Flynn snorted and flung the vial back. Mathias snatched it out of the air as Flynn clambered to his feet amidst the clinking of his chain. “I don’t think so, Shaw,” he said. “If you’re here to kill me you’re going to have to do it while I’m wide awake.” Not that the idea of being asleep for his own death lacked appeal, but in this case it was the principle of the thing.

An expression skated over Mathias’s face, too quickly for Flynn to identify it. “If you won’t drink it I’ll pour it down your throat.” Flynn folded his arms over his chest. “Fine,” said Mathias, and lunged with no warning at all.

Even chained to the wall, Flynn made a decent accounting of himself, but he was hampered by - still - not wanting to hurt Mathias. Since most of his brawling technique was dedicated to _ending_ brawls as quickly and decisively as possible, his options were limited. It took about a minute, but he ended up pressed chest-first into the wall, his unchained hand twisted up behind his back in a way that wasn’t painful but would quickly become so if he struggled. Mathias’s mouth was so close he could feel the warm breath on his neck.

And he could hear it, when Mathias breathed, “Flynn, just drink it. Please. I need you to trust me.” Flynn doubted even an elf could have heard it more than a few inches away. Which meant Mathias didn’t want the door guards to know what he was saying, and sudden hope bloomed.

“Pretend to make me,” he replied, just as quiet.

Mathias wound one hand into Flynn’s hair and tugged. Flynn let his head fall back with a grunt as if he’d been yanked and pushed his voice high. “No, Mathias, no, don’t do this -”

“It’s better than you deserve.” Mathias poured the contents of the vial into Flynn’s mouth. Flynn sputtered but Mathias dropped the vial and clamped his lips shut, and after a few seconds Flynn swallowed. Mathias let him go and backed away.

“You bastard,” Flynn snarled. “D’you think you’re going to be able to sleep at night just because you did it while my eyes were closed?” Mathias watched him impassively. Flynn went on, “How long does it take?” At least, he tried to; the words came out mushy and he realised he couldn’t focus.

“Not long,” said Mathias, and Flynn fell into the dark.

* * *

Flynn woke up feeling like the morning after, but at least the surface he lay on was soft. He pried his eyes open and discovered the interior of a small, generic bedroom, and Mathias sitting in a chair next to the bed. “How do you feel?” Mathias asked. He had his elbows resting on his knees and his fingers laced tight together; Flynn could see that his knuckles were white.

“Like the south end of a north-bound quillboar,” Flynn croaked, “but that’s better than dead.”

“The sedative takes a day or so to wear off completely but it’ll pass. You should drink as much water as you can, and eat something.” A glass, a pitcher, and a plate sat on the bedside table. “I’ll let you rest.”

Mathias stood up and turned, and made it two steps towards the door before Flynn managed to cudgel a response out of himself. “No, nope, wait, Mathias, where do you think you’re going?”

Mathias stopped but didn’t turn back around. “I can’t imagine you want my company,” he said over his shoulder. He sounded very calm.

“Mate, you just committed _actual_ treason to save my life, why would I not want your company?” Mathias didn’t move, and Flynn rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Mathias, come back here.”

Mathias took a deep breath. Flynn extracted one arm from the blankets and made grabby motions in his direction, and was rewarded with a smile, small and crooked but sincere for all that. When he was close enough Flynn seized his hand and tugged until he sat down on the bed. “What the hell happened?” Flynn asked.

“In a word, N’Zoth,” said Mathias. “Anduin is...under his influence somehow.”

“Tidemother,” said Flynn, appalled.

“Wrathion thinks we can still save him.”

Flynn blinked. “Wrathion? Wrathion is a _dragon_.”

“I’m aware,” said Mathias, dry as dust.

“How did it come to this?” Flynn wished he were sitting up so that he could dramatically flop back down. He settled for squeezing Mathias’s hand. “I’m just a sailor, how did I end up mixed up with kings and dragons?”

“You’d be safer if you weren’t,” said Mathias. “Flynn, I’m sorry.”

Flynn pointed at his own shoulders. “Not dead. I’m calling that good enough.”

Mathias didn’t look convinced, but Flynn reckoned he had time to work on it.


	2. Look to the Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #3 imprisonment, #21 torture

Felsoul Hold was never quiet.

Felhounds growled and barked at random, their voices grating in a way no normal dog’s could ever be; the packs of little demonic servitors chattered to each other in Eredun as they passed; imps gibbered and capered. The wind-rush of flames never ceased.

And of course, there was the screaming. Often enough it was Mathias’ own. It was a damned good thing they didn’t ask him any questions; he’d long since passed the point at which he’d have told them anything they wanted to know if only they would _stop_. But as long as they didn’t ask, he could just about manage to keep all his sensitive information behind his teeth. It helped that he knew with bedrock certainty that nothing he could tell them would buy him mercy.

He supposed he should be insulted to be relegated to the status of plaything, brought out to be tormented whenever a sufficiently influential demon was bored, but Mathias didn’t have the energy to spare for taking offense. It was all he could do to keep silent, and keep breathing - though if he were honest with himself, he wondered why he bothered. Eventually they _would_ kill him, either because he’d grown boring in his turn or by sheer accident, and at least that would stop the pain. It would have been easier to loosen his hold on life, to let that inevitable end find him more quickly. But he found he couldn’t.

It wasn’t as if he could have actively damaged himself, anyway. He couldn’t even refuse to eat, as he’d discovered early on. If he didn’t eat what he was given of his own accord, they’d force it down his throat. He had no idea what the pink paste they fed him was, and didn’t want to find out for fear of having his darker suspicions confirmed.

Mathias shifted. The movement accomplished nothing but a flare of the constant burning ache that ran from wrist to wrist along his arms and across his upper back. He couldn’t sit or lie down in his chains, attached as they were high on the sides of his tiny cell, and kneeling left him just short of hanging from his wrists but it was better than dozing off on his feet and wrenching every muscle he had when he collapsed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for more than an hour at a time, except that it had been before he and his team had left on that disastrous mission. He never slept well in the field to begin with.

Detheroc had delighted in telling him that Amber hadn’t made it, had been betrayed by their own people working under what they thought were _Mathias’_ orders. No one was coming to extract him; no one even knew he needed to be extracted.

He realized he was weeping, and couldn’t stop.

* * *

Mathias was startled out of the shallow doze that was the best he could manage by a short series of distant explosions, less than a second from the first bang to the last. The two felguard at the top of the stairs hesitated for only a moment before hurrying out and Mathias began the laborious process of prodding himself into useful awareness. He didn’t know what was happening, but it was something _new_ and he had a feeling he needed to be functional to greet it.

Eventually he hauled himself to his feet, and for an unknowable time just stood there, every sense straining. At first he tried to count his heartbeats, but he was still sleep-sodden and the numbers slipped from his grasp almost immediately. The scrape of a foot on the stone floor had to be deliberate, and it was the only warning he got before two figures faded out of stealth.

Mathias had met Taoshi of the Shado-Pan during the hunt for Anduin in Pandaria; the dwarven woman at her side was no one he recognized. She wore plain dark leathers and the daggers at her hips had clearly been chosen for efficacy rather than spectacle, and from the expression on her face Mathias looked even worse than he’d imagined.

“Master Shaw,” said Taoshi, and gave him a formal little bow. The gesture was absurd enough under the circumstances to let him gather his wits.

“The Uncrowned to the rescue,” he said. At least his voice was steady, if hoarse. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

The dwarf was opening her mouth when the sound of approaching feet reached them. Whatever she’d meant to say, she instead uttered a Dwarvish word that Mathias didn’t know the precise translation of - but he could infer the general meaning. Taoshi gave an exasperated growl, rather more literally than a human would have, and said, “Signe, keep them off me and I will get SI:7 here out of his cage.”

Mathias lacked the wherewithal to hide his surprise. Taoshi was a competent enough picklock, but her strengths lay in, frankly, stabbing things. If she was turning the combat job over to Signe, the dwarf must be something out of the ordinary. Signe must have seen his eyebrows go up, because she grinned at him and said, “Will do. Dinnae fash yerself, laddie, we’ll have ye out of there faster than ye can quench a toothpick.”

She vanished into stealth as Mathias struggled with the idea of a forged-metal toothpick. His thoughts felt like a malfunctioning gnomish gadget, lurching from hare-quick to slower than a turtle and back unpredictably.

“Here they come,” said Taoshi, even as she bent to the lock. A group of lesser demons clattered down the stairs, weapons brandished, and as the first one hit the bottom of the staircase it suddenly stopped and slumped to the floor, dazed. The others couldn’t course-correct in time and the advancing group dissolved into a muddle of tangled limbs and waving weapons. And then Signe flashed back into visibility, stabbing one of the demons in the side and twisting the blade as she withdrew it. The wound began to pulse foul black blood.

Many people thought that a rogue’s light weapons and armor meant they couldn’t hold their own in a serious fight. Mathias had always thought that attitude was short-sighted, especially since all it needed to be proven wrong was a chance to watch a talented rogue fighting. Signe wove around her opponents as if she were leading them in a dance, never quite standing where the blow fell, stepping through shadow when she needed to reposition herself. Mathias recognized the style; it was the one he used himself and he wondered where she’d learned it.

The last demon to fall was the one she’d sapped to sow chaos at the onset of the fight and she stepped away from the corpses, her breathing fast but controlled. From the top of the stairs came the sound of more incoming demons and Mathias snapped, “Get me out of here so that I can _help_.” He was sure he could function for at least a few minutes, but they had to make their escape before he burned through his reserves. Taoshi and Signe wouldn’t be able to fight their way back out if they had to haul him as well, and he refused to be the reason that two more people died.

“You’ll get your chance soon enough, Mathias,” Taoshi said, and exclaimed in triumph as the cell’s lock clicked open. “One down, two to go.” She wrenched the door open with more speed than finesse, stepped into the cell, and took his shackled wrist in one hand.

The second group took a little longer, and it was clear Signe had to expend more resources to manage it, including one spectacular burst of eight throwing stars in half as many seconds - impressive both in itself and because Mathias couldn’t see where she’d had them hidden. When the last demon slid from her blades she bent for a moment, hands on her knees, and breathed hard. “Hurry it up, lass,” she said, straightening, and pulled two small vials from a pocket.

“It’s magical,” Taoshi mumbled around the various lockpicks she held between her teeth. “I am working as fast as I can.”

Signe downed the contents of one vial (from the crimson glint a healing potion), then the other, and the sharp scent of thistle tea cut through the heavy reek of blood. The alchemical concoction, a distant cousin at best to the mild stimulant with which it shared a name, gave a burst of energy, then when it wore off she’d be drained for hours; Mathias almost never used it for exactly that reason, but if ever circumstances had called for it they did so now.

Footsteps rang out, echoing in the vastness of the chamber; only one set of footsteps, and Signe’s face went grim as she looked up. Mathias had to twist his head uncomfortably to see the arch at the top of the stairs and his heart sank when a felguard emerged from the dim room beyond. Taoshi, to her eternal credit, didn’t so much as glance away from her work.

The demon towered over Signe - towered over Mathias, much less a woman whose head barely cleared his breastbone - and its brutal spiked mace was longer than she was tall. She’d have the advantage of speed, but felguard were more agile than they looked. Mathias saw her shift her grip on her daggers as the felguard advanced on her, the mace going up and up; it reached the top of its arc and began to fall and Signe vanished.

The felguard, committed to its swing, brought the mace down with a shattering crash that Mathias could feel in his teeth. Taoshi muttered something short and unhappy in her native language.

As the felguard began to pull its mace back to ready, Signe dropped out of the air behind it, stabbing for its liver - or at least, in Mathias’ experience the demons had _some_ vital organ in roughly the correct spot, though he wouldn’t have liked to bet much that it did the same job as a liver. The felguard arched its back and roared, and Mathias hissed in agitation. Their odds of getting out of here were falling rapidly, he could feel it, the situation teetering on the edge of a very high cliff.

Taoshi abruptly spat out another Pandaren curse, dropped her lockpicks, and spun to bolt out of the cell, drawing her daggers as she went. Signe landed and slashed and the felguard staggered, hamstrung. It dropped its mace, which hit the floor with a ringing like a cracked bell, and barely caught itself on one huge hand. But that brought it down far enough and Taoshi simply stepped in and opened its throat with a neat backhand swipe. They all watched the felguard warily until it was done bleeding out.

“Get me _out of here_ ,” Mathias said tightly, “or kill me and run.” He didn’t want to die - still, he didn’t want to die - but he wouldn’t be able to bear knowing that someone had come for him and failed. They’d never get another chance.

Whatever reply the women might have made was cut off by a shout. “Enough! I will deal with this myself.”

Mathias went cold. “The vaultwarden. That’s the vaultwarden,” he said, forcing the words out. “Kill me and _run_.”

“I didnae come this far to leave ye now,” Signe snapped. Mathias ground his teeth. “Taoshi - I’ll draw it in, ye get me its throat.” Taoshi nodded and faded out.

“I mean it,” said Mathias.

“So do I, laddie. _Fòghnaidh na dh'fhòghnas!_ ”

Signe cast an assessing look around, strode to a reasonably clear patch of floor, dropped both of her daggers, and collapsed heavily to her knees and one hand, the other moving to clutch at her abdomen. Her breathing went rough, her shoulders moving with it. To all appearances she was helpless, mortally wounded - but still salvageable, and the vaultwarden would never be able to resist the prospect of another prisoner to torment. Mathias would have been impressed if he hadn’t been furious.

The vaultwarden appeared at the top of the steps moments later, floating on the rancid miasma that formed its body from the waist down, and paused to take in the scene. Signe looked up, gasped, and groped for a dagger. “Who are you, little mouse?” the vaultwarden asked, in its incongruously pleasant voice. It began to glide down the stairs. “Once we have you properly contained, we’ll find out.”

The only thing that kept Mathias from yanking on his chains was knowing that if he could possibly have broken them, he’d have done it by now.

Signe got a grip on one of her daggers and held it up shakily. The vaultwarden laughed, and the sound echoed from the stone. “The mouse has teeth,” it said, as it reached the floor. “You’ll be very entertaining, I’m -”

Taoshi appeared mid-air, mid-pounce, and landed on the vaultwarden’s back, one hand swinging. The thin line of a garotte wrapped around the demon’s neck and she grabbed with both hands, her feet braced on its lower back. The vaultwarden reached up to claw at the wire - bypassed its neck entirely and grabbed Taoshi’s forearm instead, wrenching her forward over its head and letting her fly. She rolled with the throw enough that the landing didn’t appear to break anything but Mathias doubted she’d be on her feet again immediately.

And as soon as she was clear, Signe exploded from the floor like gnomish fireworks. The vaultwarden, startled, swung for her and its cruel claws scored across her stomach, leaving four parallel slashes in her leathers. She ignored the blow, grabbed the demon by the wrist, and used the leverage and her momentum to vault up and snag one of its huge curling horns. “My chains will shackle you!” it howled, bringing its hands up to tear her away from where she dangled.

Dangled close enough to draw back her arm and slam it forward again, driving her dagger into the vaultwarden’s eye with ferocious precision. It shrieked, excruciatingly loud, and the walls vibrated with it; Mathias reflexively tried to clap his hands over his ears and was brought up short by the chains. The demon threw its head back and shook, wailing its agony, and Signe leapt away from it and came down on her feet, panting.

None of them moved while the vaultwarden died.

When the last scream had faded, Signe said, “Time to go. I cannae take another one like that.” Her stomach was bleeding, not much but it had to hurt like fire, and her neat crown of red braids had begun to come unmoored.

“I can’t pick the locks,” said Taoshi, sheathing her daggers. “It is up to you, Signe.”

“Ye couldnae have worked that out before the thistle tea? My hands’re shakin’.” But Signe drew a leather packet from a hidden pocket and joined Mathias in his cell. “As far down as ye can, laddie,” she said. Mathias obliged, turning his wrist as she directed to give her an angle on the lock.

Taoshi kept watch while Signe worked. Mathias tried not to move; tried not to shake. He didn’t dare let himself believe that he was actually going to get out of here. Better to assume that they’d be attacked again, or that she wouldn’t be able to open the lock. If he _hoped_ , and hope was crushed...that would break him.

“Ye’re a tricky little bastard but I’ve got ye now,” Signe said, in tones of deep satisfaction, and the cuff’s lock gave way with a _tick_ that Mathias felt more than heard. She pushed the halves of it apart and for the first time in, well, he didn’t have the faintest clue how long, his arm could fall straight from his shoulder. Every muscle and joint from his breastbone to his palm shouted in simultaneous protest and he smothered a yelp. Compared to some of the things that had been done to him this was nothing.

The second manacle went faster and the second straight arm was just as painful, and then Mathias realized that he could - leave. Just leave, just walk out; there were no chains, no locked doors, and no demons. He prodded the idea experimentally.

“Here,” said Signe, breaking his train of thought before he could get mired in it. He looked up from his wrists, pale where they weren’t bruised and liberally dotted with small abrasions, to discover her holding out another small vial. “Ye need this more than I do.”

“You’re bleeding,” he said. Her wounds were beginning to clot but shallow, ragged gouges like that hurt much more than deeper but clean-edged ones.

“I’ve also slept lyin’ down in the past three months. Take it.”

Mathias reached for the vial, hesitated, and then took it when Signe brandished it at him. He thumbed the cap off. The slightly sweet taste of the deep red liquid was absurdly good and the warmth of it spread through his whole body in a rush, carrying away pain as it went. When the magic was spent he flexed his fingers experimentally. Nothing hurt as a result. He had a feeling that he’d be discovering weaknesses and aches for quite a while yet, but at least he felt like the aftermath of a hard practice session rather than the target dummy. “Thank you.”

Signe waved one hand. “Dinnae mention it.”

Mathias shook his head and said, “I will mention it. You have my eternal gratitude. Never let it be said that I have underestimated the reach and prowess of the Uncrowned.”

“Fine, then I accept on behalf of the Uncrowned,” said Signe, sounding peevish.

“We must go,” Taoshi said. “Soon they’ll send more and we cannot be here when they arrive. None of us are in a condition to fight.”

“To the Chamber of Shadows, I assume,” Mathias said. “I’ll need armor and weapons.”

“What ye _need_ is food, sleep, and more healing.”

“First I have to take care of Detheroc. He can’t be allowed to continue using my position the way he has.” Mathias drew a deep breath. “The easy part’s done. Now it’s time to do the impossible.”


	3. Full Fathom Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #5 "Take me instead", #11 hallucinations, #12 “Who are you?”
> 
> This is, essentially, an AU of ["Despair, Yours"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26362963/chapters/64209319) by Mice, part 8 of the [Sea Change series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875685). Only scenes that are substantially different are included, so if you're missing context or otherwise confused, you'll need to go read that. The point of divergence is Hayaji being about 10% more ruthless.

Flynn shook his head. “I’m not threatening you, mate. I’m telling you that _if_ he takes leave of his senses enough to pay you, and _if_ you manage to get away with the gold, you’d best run as far and as fast as you can, find yourself a hole, and pull it in after you. He’s going to want you dead.”

“He's probably right, ya know. Shaw ain't gonna like dis,” the druid said. “But de gold? Ohhh, de gold. It be worth de risk.”

Flynn didn’t think so - this kind of insanity was what he’d tried to avoid himself, when he’d been a freebooter - but he clearly wasn’t going to change their minds so he kept his opinion behind his teeth.

Hayaji leaned forward and braced his elbows on his desk, lacing his fingers together. “Here’s how it’s going to go, Captain Fairwind. You and your crew will be my 'guests' in our brig. I think we can get enough out of your people to warrant letting you and your vessel go, if the ransom is paid, otherwise you'll all be marooned on a rock somewhere and left to your fate. It'll take me a couple of days to get the ransom demand delivered, but once it’s in his hands, Shaw will have two weeks to come up with payment and meet my agent in Anyport, in Drustvar. Once he meets the agent, they'll sail out to meet us. They'll give us the ransom. We will turn you and your ship over to him and you'll be free to go.” He shrugged one shoulder at his First Mate. "Apu'jin and I retire, and somebody else buys this tub from me. We disappear. Everybody's happy. Except Shaw, but I don't care about his happiness. He’ll have you back and he should be grateful for it."

Flynn nodded. So far, so standard, except for the part where Hayaji was expecting to get gold out of Mathias.

“If you or your crew fight us, if you step out of line, there will be consequences. I'm not a cruel vulpera, but I will have discipline. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” said Flynn. “My crew will be the absolute picture of cooperation. You have my word.”

“Good. Now, there’s the matter of proof.” Flynn nodded again, heartsick. It would have to be something unequivocal, something Mathias would recognise without fail, and that meant it had to be something it would kill him to receive. “I’ve had bad luck in the past with tokens, so I fear we’re going to have to be...traditional about this.”

An icy finger ran down Flynn’s spine.

“You may choose which eye we take,” said Hayaji calmly, “and we’ll provide a potion to knock you out, if you like.”

Flynn swallowed, and swallowed again, and still his voice was a croak when it emerged. “I’ll take it,” he said.

* * *

Flynn swam up to consciousness with a sickening headache. It throbbed in time with his heartbeat and he tried to remember how much he’d drunk. Had there been a special occasion? Had Mathias brought him home and poured him into bed? He groaned and flung an arm out to search for his lover’s comforting warmth.

Instead his hand came up short against a rough wooden wall and Thurin said, “Careful, lad, don’t bump anything.”

Flynn opened his eyes - or tried to; only one opened - to the interior of the brig of the _Despair_ , realised that the upper left quadrant of his face was covered in bandages, and shuddered as memory returned in a rush. He stared at the ceiling and said, “My head hurts.”

“Aye, I’ll bet it does,” said Thurin.

Flynn turned his head to check on the crew. It seemed to be nighttime; at least, everyone besides Thurin was asleep. He raised a hand to his face but he couldn’t bring himself to touch the bandages. “Did you heal this?” He really hoped not; he didn’t want to contemplate what it would mean for the rest of his life if this were how rotten he felt _after_ being healed.

“No,” Thurin replied. Flynn nodded in something resembling relief. “I can if you want me to.”

“Why in the name of Neptulon’s tentacular _prick_ would I not want you to?” Flynn snarled, suddenly furious. He tried to sit up but Thurin put a restraining hand on his shoulder and Flynn wasn’t willing to start a fight, no matter how minor, so he subsided. The anger ran back out of him like the retreating tide, leaving bare sand behind.

“They did a good job of it,” said Thurin, evenly enough. “Very clean, very little unnecessary damage. And they used a box with a spell of preservation on it.”

“Makes sense, you don’t want your proof rotting before it gets to the mark,” said Flynn. He tried again, and failed again, to touch the bandages. “What’s that got to do with the price of tea in Halfhill?”

“If we can get your...your eye back in time, a powerful enough healer can put it back in. I can’t do it but I know people who can.”

“Himself probably can,” said Flynn. Anduin was, from what he understood, singularly powerful. “But the catch is, it won’t work after I’ve healed. Right?”

“Right,” said Thurin.

They both contemplated that glumly for a few moments.

“Leave it for now,” said Flynn. “I can always change my mind later.” Thurin nodded. “Can you do something about this headache, or will that queer the pitch?”

“I can at least damp it down some.”

When Thurin had finished pushing the Light through Flynn’s head, he went in search of his own bunk. Flynn turned to face the bulkhead, and tried to cry quietly.

* * *

The pirates jeered as Flynn’s crew were assembled before the mainmast. They each had a personal minder, steering them by their bound arms - or in Billie’s case, her shoulders. Flynn supposed he should be flattered that he rated Apu’jin herself. Billie had begun to leak a bit at the eyes, probably from sheer apprehension, and Flynn couldn’t blame her. Whatever was about to happen, he doubted any of his crew would enjoy it.

Hayaji clasped his hands behind his back and paced as he spoke. “You bit one of my crew,” he said. There was no malice in his voice; it was all very matter-of-fact. “I understand why you did it. One of mine knocked your father around, and you bared your teeth. But I can’t have that from a prisoner, not even a kit.” As he finished the speech he stopped in front of Billie, looking her up and down; they were almost exactly of a height. She tried to back away from him, sniffling, but she hit her minder’s legs. After a moment Hayaji sighed, glanced up at the crewman, and jerked his head in the direction of the mainmast.

With a shock of horror, Flynn understood what Hayaji meant to do. “No!” he shouted, wrenching himself out of Apu’jin’s hold. He stumbled a single step forward. “Hayaji, don’t do it.”

Hayaji turned to him, his ears flaring out in annoyance, as Apu’jin grabbed him again. “I have to have discipline, Fairwind. You know that.”

“This is on me, man, she’s my crew. I said I’d keep them under control and I didn’t.”

“What do you propose I do, then?” Billie looked back and forth between them, obviously bewildered.

“However many you’re planning to give her -”

“Five.”

“Give me ten instead.”

Hayaji’s ear flicked and Flynn knew enough vulpera to read the surprise. The silence seemed to stretch forever before Hayaji said, “Thirty,” in a tone that clearly expected bargaining if not outright refusal.

“Yes, alright, anything.” Thirty lashes was...a lot. Not a fatal number, but more than he’d ever taken at once before. Flynn didn’t let himself care. “Please. I’ll beg you if that’s what you want.”

There was another long, terrifying pause. “That won’t be necessary,” said Hayaji. “Strip him to the waist and tie him to the mainmast.”

They had to unbind his hands to remove his greatcoat and shirt. As he was shoved against the mast, Flynn heard Billie’s voice, high with fear. “Papa Thurin, what are they doing? What are they doing to Captain Flynn?” He couldn’t make out Thurin’s response.

A few seconds later he was in position, his arms hugging the mainmast, and his feet immobilized. Flynn turned his head so he could see Hayaji, the fabric of his bandage scraping the wood.

“Boggor, you’re the injured party,” said Hayaji.

“Aye.” The orc sounded entirely too pleased. His thigh had been bandaged, but Flynn thought it likely he’d have a limp for the rest of his life unless Apu’jin got to it soon.

Hayaji gestured and was handed a vicious-looking flogger. He offered it to the orc. “Give him twenty-five. He’s doing it for the kit’s sake.”

“With pleasure, cap’n,” the orc said. If the lower number disappointed him, he didn’t show it.

Flynn closed his eye and sagged against the mast. He could hear people placing bets - how many lashes until first blood, how many until he screamed, would he faint. He hoped he didn’t faint; this was going to hurt quite enough as it was without a bucket of salt water on the wounds to wake him up. He’d been flogged before, had scars to prove it; the cat was made of knotted cords, designed to inflict as much painful damage as possible. He’d seen men die from too many blows, and it wasn’t much comfort that Hayaji would make sure that didn’t happen to him.

He wished Billie didn’t have to watch this, but of course as far as Hayaji was concerned letting her avoid it would obviate the whole point.

Somebody pulled Flynn’s hair out of the way. He had just enough time to register the whistle of the cords through the air before the first blow landed.

It drew a grunt from between his clenched teeth, painful but not unbearable. The second was worse, and he thought it drew blood from the way the pirates cheered. Boggor wasn’t messing about. The blows fell heavy on his back, not a single stitch of mercy to be found.

By the fifth blow he was screaming, unable to stop himself. Tears ran down one side of his face and he pressed mindlessly against the mast as if he could merge with it to escape the cat. He clung grimly to consciousness, but by the time the last blow landed his grip was slipping and he was barely aware when they freed his feet. Then his arms, and without the support Flynn wavered to his knees, both hands and his forehead against the mast just enough to keep him from collapsing entirely. He gasped for breath, shuddering with pain.

“We’ve got you, Cap’n. It’s over.” Siward and Harman had apparently been let loose to deal with him. They pulled his arms over their shoulders and hoisted him to his feet. Flynn tried to help, realized he couldn’t, and let himself be carried. “I’ll kill that furry bastard and enjoy it,” Siward muttered.

“No you won’t,” his brother replied at the same volume. “You’ll help me hold him down while the cap’n kills him.” Flynn thought muzzily that the sentiment was appreciated but he wasn’t interested in anything that required moving under his own power.

Back in the brig they laid him face down on the floor of the cell. Billie knelt at his side, sobbing and holding his hand, saying she was sorry over and over. Flynn couldn’t focus on her, but he hoped she couldn’t tell. “I know,” he said, still feeling like his breath was just out of reach. “Just...don’t do it...a - again.”

Grixx and Relly pulled Billie away from him as Thurin began doing - something, Flynn couldn’t tell what except that it _hurt_ and he moaned. “Sorry, lad, I’ve got to get things back in order as much as I can before I heal you. Fewer scars that way.”

“You’re forbidden to heal him, beyond what’s necessary to keep him alive,” said Hayaji’s voice.

Thurin’s hands stilled. “And how exactly do you plan to stop me?” he snarled. Flynn wanted to tell him not to but he couldn’t muster the strength.

“I won’t,” said Hayaji, still calm, still with no anger. “But this was a lesson, and lessons have to last to be learned. So if you do heal him, we’ll take him back up on deck and flog him again.”

Flynn whimpered, and Thurin’s hand came to rest comfortingly on his shoulder where there were no stripes. But his voice was low and shaking with anger. “May the Light turn from you and forsake you in your time of need.”

Hayaji barked laughter that had no humour in it and replied, “It did that a long time ago.”

A few seconds later, Thurin said, “I’m going to put you to sleep for a while, lad.”

Flynn couldn’t have argued even if he’d wanted to, and let the warm current of the Light carry him into sleep.

* * *

The _Lowtide Tavern_ was squalid, huddled under the broken prow of a ship, and the grate floor was underwater; apparently it was literally only dry at low tide. About a dozen patrons looked up as Mathias and Steelspark sloshed their way in, Steelspark up to her knees, and then lowered their heads over their drinks again - all except a goblin near the back. “Shaw,” he said.

Mathias waded over, Steelspark silent at his side, and said, “You have something for me.”

The goblin pulled an envelope from his belt pouch and handed it over. “Message from the captain. And this.” He held out a small box. Mathias offered an open palm and the goblin dropped the box into it.

Mathias was no mage nor sorcerer; he had no trace of magical ability that he’d ever been able to detect. But you didn’t have to be able to perform magic to recognize it, especially in its more solid forms. The runes that decorated the little box glowed softly, and Mathias’ mind shied away from the recognition of what those runes were meant for. Still, it was with a sense of dread that he flicked the catch loose and pulled up the lid.

An eye, nested in the padded interior, looked placidly up at him. The iris was sea-blue, save for a spark of gold near the edge. It was Flynn’s left eye; the right had two of the tiny stabs of contrasting color.

Mathias felt rage settle over him, huge and all-consuming and colder than the Frozen Throne. He snapped the box carefully shut again and put it into his belt pouch. The goblin said, “Looks like you recognize _erk!_ ” as Mathias’s hand shot out and seized him by the throat. He flailed and everyone in the place bolted to their feet.

Steelspark grabbed Mathias by the elbow. “We can take them all, but then we’ll never get Fairwind back,” she said, quiet and firm. “You do _not_ want that. Put him down.”

“It’s his eye,” Mathias said, hearing how flat his own voice had gone. He did not squeeze the life out of the goblin. From near his feet came a series of tiny splashes as the man’s struggles dislodged coins from his pockets.

Steelspark breathed in sharply and said, “Is it preserved?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Put the goblin down, Shaw.”

For an endless second Mathias thought he wasn’t going to be able to force his hand to open, but then the goblin fell with a yelp and a splash. All the other patrons relaxed slightly as the goblin climbed back to his feet. He coughed and fixed Mathias with a glare he probably thought was intimidating. “You want your matelot back, you meet me here in two weeks, exactly like the letter says. That’s all I got to say to you, Alliance.” He spat at Mathias’s feet and stormed out of the bar, dripping.

Mathias took a breath that shuddered and gestured in the direction of the flight point. But once he and Steelspark were outside, he said calmly, “We’re going to follow him.”

Steelspark hesitated for only a moment before she said, “You’re the boss,” and they faded into stealth.

* * *

The goblin, as it turned out, was staying in Anyport. Mathias made no judgements about the man’s ability as a pirate, but as a spy he left something to be desired; he went straight to his lodgings and didn’t even bother to _try_ to detect pursuers. Not that he’d have spotted two SI:7 agents anyway, but he apparently had an unwarranted confidence in the amount of leverage provided by holding Flynn. And if Hayaji had sent Flynn’s necklace, or his compass, or his greatcoat, Mathias might not have risked it; an eye, however, added an element of time pressure.

The goblin’s quarters were a shack on the edge of the huddle of buildings that made up the residential part of the port. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was renting the place or just taking advantage of an abandoned house; from the condition of the structure it could have been either. Mathias left Steelspark to watch the door while he went around to find a useful window vantage.

The shack’s first window looked in on a tiny bedroom, hardly larger than the bed itself. Most of the footprint of the structure was taken up by the main room, in which the goblin busied himself building up a fire and drying himself and his clothing. He muttered the entire time; Mathias didn’t speak Goblin but he could divine the general gist. The details didn’t matter. Even if he’d given a kobold’s damn about this person’s opinion of him, his ancestry, and his life choices, he had more important things to worry about.

The goblin heated up a bowl of something and ate it, while Mathias systematically tensed and relaxed his muscles to keep himself from stiffening up. The sun had gone down around the time they’d left the _Lowtide_ , and the temperature was dropping. It wouldn’t get unbearably cold this time of year but he wanted to stay ready for emergency action.

When he’d finished his dinner the goblin sighed, stood up, and went into the bedroom. Mathias danced back to the other window to find the man rummaging in a bag, from which he extracted...something. A gadget of some sort, probably of goblin design - they tended towards more blinking lights where gnomes preferred an abundance of switches. He took it back out to set it on the small, not very sturdy table.

There followed several minutes of flipping of switches, turning of dials, further muttering in Goblin, and the occasional smack to the device’s side. Eventually the man exclaimed, “Ah- _ha_!” and pressed a button. “ _Despair_ , this is Delzex, can you hear me?” He let up on the button, waited a few moments, and repeated the action.

The device crackled and someone replied. At his distance Mathias couldn’t make out the words, distorted as they were by the means of their delivery. Delzex said, “Get the boss. And hurry it up, this thing is givin’ me trouble.”

They waited. After a few minutes, the device spoke again.

“I met Shaw,” Delzex said. “Gave him the letter and the box. Bastard tried to choke me to death but his lackey talked him down.” Steelspark would be bristling at “lackey” and inventing new garments to knit with his tendons.

The communicator asked a question and Delzex laughed. “Oh, he’s gonna go for it alright. You shoulda seen his face. I gotta admit, boss, I thought you were crazy asking for a million -” Outside, Mathias blinked. A _million_ gold? Stormwind itself didn’t have that much just lying around in the treasury. “- but he’s _far_ gone. Fairwind must be able to suck-start a shredder or something.”

Mathias clenched his fists. Reducing his relationship with Flynn to mere sex was adding egregious insult to the horrific injury they’d already inflicted. “Yeah,” Delzex said. “Yeah, I really do.”

The device emitted a loud burst of static and he winced. “Look, I’ll try to check in but I don’t know how much longer the comm unit’s gonna hold up. I’m heading out in the morning to wait it out somewhere else in case he gets any ideas, but seriously, don’t worry. Shaw’s gonna cough it up, no question.” He paused to listen to a reply. “Yeah. See you in a few weeks and none of us will ever have to worry about money again.”

The device said something that sounded cut off, and the low hum it had been producing since Delzex had turned it on died away.

* * *

They waited until after midnight.

Steelspark stayed at the bedroom door, stealthed, in case Delzex fancied making a break for it. Mathias drew a dagger and knelt carefully on the ragged straw tick that served as a bed, hovering over the goblin where he lay curled on his side. Then he seized Delzex by his shoulder, shoved him flat on his back, and had his hand around his throat and the point of the dagger a bare inch from his left eye when it flew open in shock. “Hello, Delzex,” he said conversationally. “We need to talk.”

To his credit, the goblin rallied quickly. “Shaw. When I tell Hayaji about this, your boy’s gonna lose another part or two.”

“You’d better hope he doesn’t.” It took everything Mathias had to keep his tone calm, as if they were discussing a friendly business transaction or exchanging the latest news.

“You can’t do anything to me,” Delzex spat. “If I die you’ll never fucking find him. Hayaji’ll make sure of that.”

“And you’ll still be dead, so I’d think carefully about my options if I were you. I want you to tell me where Hayaji is.”

Delzex snorted. “I’ll bet you do. I ain’t tellin’ you shit. Hayaji will kill me.”

Mathias made a thoughtful face and said, “That’s not quite right, is it? Hayaji may kill you, yes, if he survives and if he ever sees you again. But I _will_ kill you.” He smiled, with no attempt to let it reach his eyes. “And I’ll hurt you first.” Mathias was not and had never been the kind to enjoy inflicting pain, but he thought that for this man he might make an exception.

“You can’t do that,” said Delzex, for the first time with a thread of uncertainty. “There are rules for you official types.”

Mathias tightened his grip on Delzex’s throat just a bit. “You appear to think you’re talking to Master Shaw of SI:7,” he said. “You’re not. My name is Mathias and you’re standing between me and what’s _mine_. So again: think carefully about whether that’s where you want to be.” Delzex stared up at him.

Mathias had had to learn a lot about pressure and how to apply it; he watched the calculations whirl through Delzex’s head, and he knew what the answer was going to be before the man spoke. “I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you, _if_ you let me go after.”

“Good,” Mathias said.

* * *

When Flynn woke up he didn’t have even the few moments of forgetfulness that had followed the removal of his eye; he hurt too much for that. The movement of air over his back felt like licking flames and the thought of putting a shirt on nauseated him. He couldn’t even move his arms much without aggravating his macerated flesh into screaming.

Cautious experimentation revealed that sitting up wasn’t any more painful than lying on his front, as long as he remembered not to lean on anything - but remembering was the tricky part and eventually he decided it was easier to stay lying down except to eat.

He worried about his crew. The way they interacted with their captors had changed, from cautious resentment to active, obvious antagonism; they had just about managed to reconcile themselves to the eye, but the flogging had pushed them over the edge. No one tried anything more defiant than refusing to thank the pirates who brought their meals, but Flynn was well aware that their restraint was for his sake and he feared the day that some tiny thing would set someone off. He didn’t know if he could bring himself to ask to take another flogging, and he suspected Hayaji wouldn’t let him anyhow.

He didn’t realise that there was anything wrong. He felt terrible, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise; all things considered, he was mildly surprised not to feel worse. The brig lacked any good ventilation, so it didn’t strike him as odd that he was too warm, and the substandard lighting - combined with his efforts to not turn his back on the crew because the sight upset Billie - meant that no one noticed anything turning the wrong colour.

* * *

Getting Delzex back to Boralus took a bit of wrangling, since Mathias wasn’t willing to let him ride on his own and the flight master didn’t want to let one of their gryphons be overburdened. Finally they compromised, putting Delzex and Steelspark on one gryphon and Mathias alone on the other.

They arrived back in Boralus as the first hints of dawn started to tint the sky; in Stormwind the morning was a bit further advanced. “Take him to HQ,” Mathias said. Steelspark nodded. “I need to talk to the king.”

He went home to clean up, taking enough time about it that it had reached a decent hour by the time he presented himself at the Keep. When he was shown into the king’s presence, Anduin was dressed, still clutching a coffee cup like a lifeline - but his eyes widened. “What’s happened?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Anduin,” Mathias said, using the familiar name to indicate that this wasn’t official business.

Anduin’s brow furrowed. “Coffee?” He gestured at a chair and seated himself as Mathias took it.

“No, thank you.” Mathias forced his grip on the little box to relax, and said, “I have...a problem.”

Confusion shifted to concern, and Anduin said, “Tell me.”

Mathias thought it most efficient to simply hand over the two letters from Hayaji. The king read them, the concern changing to surprise and then anger as he went. When he was finished he looked up and said, “Yes, it appears we do.”

“It’s worse than you think,” Mathias said. He’d had a great deal of practice over the course of his life in controlling his voice, so it came out steady. He held out the box; Anduin took it and it was clear he recognized the glyphs that covered it.

“What’s in here?”

“It’s his -” Mathias had to stop to collect himself. “It’s his left eye.” Anduin grimaced. “From what I can see, it was done very neatly.”

Anduin opened the box and studied its contents. “Yes. Assuming the wound is as clean, I’ll be able to fix this.”

Mathias felt a tiny measure of tension leave his shoulders. “I’m glad to hear that, but it means there’s a deadline. If there weren’t -”

“You’d have a different plan. I assume you have a plan.” Anduin wrapped both hands around his mug. “What do you need?”

“First of all, I need you to accept my resignation.”

“Mathias, I haven’t had to have this conversation with you until now, but if you’re about to tell me that you’ve become ‘a liability to the Crown’ because of having a _whole_ heart, and not half of one, I won’t hear it.”

Maithias shook his head. “It might be … convenient later if you can truthfully say that I wasn’t under your direct command while committing the atrocities I am about to commit.” He paused, but Anduin’s expression didn’t change. “And it goes hand-in-hand with expecting me to be out of the city and likely out of contact for an indeterminate period. It shouldn’t be more than two weeks, but there’s always the chance of delays.”

“You are hereby relieved of your duties,” said Anduin. “Subject to immediate reinstatement at my discretion.”

“Thank you. Second, I need a ship. The faster the better. I could have the _Middenwake_ for the asking, but she’s not built for speed.”

Anduin nodded thoughtfully. “We might do better to speak to Jaina. We brought Kul Tiras back into the Alliance for a reason.” He studied Mathias for a moment. “I think there’s something else.”

Mathias nodded. He had no right to ask this and it galled him, but he had to try. “I would like to ask you to come with me.”

A moment of startled silence passed before Anduin said, “I assume you have a reason for that.” He didn’t sound angry or dismissive, at least.

“Flynn’s carpenter Thurin Firebeard is also a priest, but I’ve never heard anything to suggest that he’s powerful enough to handle that.” Mathias waved at the box. “That level of ability tends to go into a more adventurous line of work. And as I said, there’s a deadline. We’re going to be cutting it close to get to him in time anyway; waiting while we sail _back_ to Stormwind, or Boralus if it’s closer, is essentially guaranteed to be too long. I need someone with me who can regenerate the eye, and the thought of risking half of Flynn’s sight on a hireling, an unknown quantity -” Mathias hesitated, but he couldn’t hide if he wanted Anduin’s help. “Frankly, it terrifies me. I know you can do this, and I need to know I did everything I could.”

Anduin’s expression softened. Mathias hated to play on the king’s compassion like this, but he’d have done far worse if necessary. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to,” Anduin said. “No one will be happy if I do. But if there’s any way, I’ll come.”

“Thank you,” Mathias said again, and Anduin smiled.

“You’re very welcome.” He drained his coffee mug and set it back down. “Now, let’s go talk to Jaina.”

* * *

Anduin wore a hood shadowing his face for the walk through Boralus from the portal nexus. Mathias relied on not wearing his armor and walking like a sailor, and if anyone recognized Master Shaw in the street they hid it well.

The Lord Admiral was also early in her working morning when Mathias and Anduin arrived, and she looked up from a sheaf of papers with a smile when they entered her office. But she, like Anduin, sobered quickly as they exchanged perfunctory greetings. “This isn’t a social visit,” she said.

Mathias had only a tiny part of his mind available to wonder at the idea of someone even considering that a visit from him might be _social_. “I’ll be brief. Flynn and his ship and crew are being held for ransom by a vulpera pirate named Hayaji.” Dismay crossed Jaina’s face, followed quickly by anger. “I need the use of a fast ship to go after him.”

“Just a moment.” Jaina went to the door and issued a series of rapid-fire orders to her assistant before returning to her desk. “Now that that’s underway, I take it you have some idea of where they’re being held.”

“The man who delivered the ransom demand has...seen reason. By which I mean he’s seen that my dagger is much closer to him than Hayaji’s.” Anduin smothered a laugh and immediately looked ashamed of himself. “He can take me there.”

Jaina nodded. “I’m happy to provide a ship. Fairwind’s a useful person to have among my assets, quite aside from the personal connection. But I’ve heard of Hayaji. He doesn’t have a reputation for cruelty. As long as you can reach them before he’s expecting the ransom, all that the prisoners are risking if the rescue mission takes a few days longer is a few more days in the brig.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the case,” said Mathias. Once again he showed the box. “I have to reach Flynn before he’s too healed for his eye to be put back in.”

“His _eye_ ,” Jaina exclaimed. “That’s barbaric.” Then she cocked her head and went on slowly, “And very, very stupid of Hayaji.”

Feeling extremely stupid himself, Mathias asked, “How so?”

“Captain Fairwind is Kul Tiran, and at sea,” said Jaina. “A body part is the strongest possible sympathetic link. And as it happens, I have some experience in using a sympathetic link to locate Kul Tiran things at sea.”

For the first time since Hayaji’s letter had hit his desk, Mathias felt something that might be akin to hope.

* * *

Flynn was struggling to hold up his end of a conversation when there was a thud above them, and a scream. Both were muffled by the intervening decks but all the _Arva’s_ crew came alert anyway and one of their guards went hurrying out. For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then the door leading into the brig’s vestibule burst open and a group of pirates rushed in, carrying one of their crewmates. His thighbone protruded through the skin and he was semi-conscious at best, moaning with the pain. Flynn winced. He didn’t like any of these people but wishing that kind of injury on someone went well beyond mere dislike.

“Priest!” barked one of the pirates, a goblin who hadn’t been in the brig before. “Fix his leg!”

Thurin made to stand up, paused, crossed his arms, and sat back down on the bunk. “I think not,” he said. Flynn grimaced, but he couldn’t think of any way to interfere that wouldn’t make it worse.

The goblin’s hand moved to the hilt of her cutlass. “ _Do it_ ,” she snarled.

“Your boss has already sent a ransom demand that includes me,” said Thurin. “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear you’ve killed me. Get your druid to heal him.”

The goblin’s reply was cut off by another pirate, a troll like the injured man, who bumped her in passing and fetched up against the bars. “Apu’jin be out swimmin’,” she said. “By de time she come back, Bwonsamdi be takin’ him.” Thurin said nothing but to Flynn’s eye his expression had gone less stony. “ _Please_. He be my matelot. Please.”

Thurin took a deep breath and sighed it out again. “Bring him in,” he said.

By the time the troll’s thighbone had been restored and his flesh reknitted, Thurin was pale and shaking with fatigue. The man’s matelot went to the galley to fetch Thurin extra food and drink, but recovery from that sort of expenditure took time.

Thus it was that when Flynn woke everyone in the dark several hours later, searching clumsily for his cutlasses and shouting that they needed to run out the guns, Thurin had little to spare to bring Flynn’s fever down.

* * *

Ned had never intended to be a pirate, but the work suited him, far better than the Admiralty ever had. He got to be aboardship, and if word got back about what he’d been doing on shore leave, no one much cared. Hayaji was smart and successful, fair, a good captain, and like to make them all a whole lot of money in the near future.

Flynn bloody Fairwind, who’d have thought? Sleeping with Shaw of SI:7, no less, and now here, on Ned’s ship. It was too bad Harlan Sweete had gotten knocked off by the Alliance; Sweete had had a grudge roughly the size of the Great Sea against the man, and Ned probably could have made some more money selling Fairwind’s location to the Irontide.

Assuming Fairwind lived. He’d been delirious all day, from what the guards in the brig had been saying.

Ned turned a corner and discovered light shining from the crack under the door of one of the storage compartments. It was steady and white rather than the wavering yellow of a flame, and Ned stopped in his tracks. He drew his cutlass and advanced cautiously, as the light flared and subsided and an odd noise reached his ears. Outside the door he paused, but he heard nothing except the noise again, in time with a pulse of the light.

Ned stood to one side, took hold of the latch and shoved the door violently open. It swung wide. Nothing else happened. The white glow continued. After a moment Ned edged through the doorway, just as the flare and the noise happened again; he turned his head in time to see a figure in a heavy cloak emerging from...it had to be a portal, like mages used. Even as Ned watched it flickered and faded out. He drew breath to shout.

From behind him a hand clapped down over his mouth and he felt the edge of a blade against his throat. He froze.

“Drop it,” said a voice in his ear. Ned opened his hand and his cutlass hit the deck with a thud. “Where are the prisoners? Quietly.” Mainlander accent, Ned noticed absurdly. The hand lifted a bit.

“In the brig, lowest deck, aft,” he said, at an appropriately low volume. Hayaji was a good boss but he wasn’t paying enough to hold out in the face of _this_.

“How many guards?”

“Two at a time. One changes out every bell.”

“Thank you,” said the voice, and Ned was just about to ask what next when the hand over his mouth tightened again and the blade opened his throat.

 _That’s not fair, I was answering,_ he thought, and then he thought nothing at all.

* * *

Mathias held the pirate up until he lost enough blood to fall unconscious, then lowered the body to the deck. “Alright. Storm, Baskerville, get over the side as soon as you can and start planting charges.” The druids, both of them on four paws rather than two feet, murmured agreement. Jeremy Storm was Kul Tiran, the brother of the _Middenwake’_ s captain; Violet Baskerville had come to Stormwind via Darnassus after the sacking of Gilneas, and had found SI:7 suited to her talents despite not being a rogue. A druid in cat-form had many of the same advantages. “Everyone else, stay in pairs and stay hidden as long as possible. If you have a choice between eliminating a pirate and escaping detection, let the pirate live. Understood?” There was a ragged, low-voiced chorus of _yes_ and _yeah_ and _aye._ “Last, remember we need Hayaji alive.” If they were discovered, getting the _Bold Arva_ away from the _Despair_ would be easier with some leverage, but in the privacy of his own mind Mathias admitted that he’d have wanted the pirate captain alive anyway.

He intended to make very, very certain that Hayaji understood exactly how terrible a mistake he had made - before he died.

“Let’s move.”

The druids went out first, padding silently, followed by pairs of SI:7 agents at half-minute intervals. When the storeroom was nearly empty, Mathias said, “Stay with Steelspark and Keeshan.”

“I’m not defenseless, Master Shaw,” said Anduin, in a tone that made it clear he was rolling his eyes.

“You’re also not subtle, _Jerek_ ,” Mathias replied. “Everything you do glows.” At least Anduin wasn’t in his heavy armor; the stuff was protective, but it clanked.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Good.”

* * *

On a ship, someone is always awake, but in the middle watch, not under way, only a skeleton crew was stirring. Lone pirates walked down empty corridors, turned corners, and vanished; they lurched into shadows and didn’t emerge. A Pandaren returning from a trip to the necessary had just enough time to notice that the bunkroom deck was slick with blood before a blow from behind stunned her. The mount-tender in his hammock near the perches didn’t even wake up.

The _Despair_ rocked placidly under a moonless sky, and death twined through her like poison in the blood.

* * *

Anduin supposed he should be disquieted by the matter-of-fact efficiency with which Mathias dispatched the pirates they met in their trip to the brig, but instead he was oddly touched; the man made obvious efforts to do his killing where Anduin couldn’t see it.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known, since he was old enough to know what killing meant, that Master Shaw killed people - quickly, dispassionately, and most importantly to order. That very fact had made Anduin wary, reluctant to mention problems lest the Master of SI:7 decide that the best solution to them was to kill someone. It had only gotten worse with the outbreak of the Fourth War, with so much death happening already.

Then came Kul Tiras, and Flynn Fairwind, and Master Shaw had somehow become Mathias, who loved beyond all reason, and Anduin had had cause to spend more than one evening glumly reflecting on how harshly he’d judged the man without ever really knowing him. Mathias had been raised to be Stormwind’s knife, and he could hardly be blamed for failing to abandon everything he’d ever been taught was important.

And in truth, while Anduin didn’t enjoy the deaths of the pirates, he had difficulty mourning people who had been party to cutting a man’s eye out in pursuit of gold. If, indeed, gold were the prize Hayaji had his eye on, and not the theft at its delivery of Anduin’s - the Alliance’s - spymaster and all the secrets he held. One more reason not to dwell on their flames winking out.

At the door to the brig, the SI:7 agents dealt with the guards in moments. Anduin went in last, shut the door behind him, and turned to discover Mathias standing like a statue, staring at a bunk built into the wall behind sturdy bars. On it lay Flynn, face-down, his head pillowed on one arm to avoid putting pressure on the bandage that covered his left eye socket - but Anduin could see at a glance that the eye wasn’t his only problem. He clearly wasn’t fully aware, twitching and muttering, and Anduin's heart sank. Fever.

Anduin had never thought he had the temperament to be a healer full-time, even if that had been an option open to him, but sometimes the sight of a patient hit him and everything else ceased to matter. “Get the cell open,” he ordered.

Agent Steelspark, who’d been searching the human guard, stood up and offered a key. Anduin plucked it from her hand in passing, unlocked the cell door, and went to one knee beside the bunk. Flynn’s back was a mass of bruising and near-parallel lacerations; Anduin didn’t know what caused injuries like that, but he didn’t need to. He just had to hope that the infection had started there, and not in Flynn’s eye. He glanced at the dwarf who sat on the next bunk, who he assumed to be Thurin Firebeard, and asked, “How long?”

“He took a bad turn last night but it must’ve been at least a day longer than that,” the dwarf replied. “I couldn’t catch up.” The man looked exhausted, and Anduin wondered for a moment what had happened to deplete him so thoroughly. But there was time for that sort of question later. He put one hand on Flynn’s forehead and couldn’t hide a grimace at the heat.

“This is going to be more complicated than I expected,” he said.

Thurin made the kind of laugh that would have sounded more sincere if he’d just said _ha ha_ and had done with it, and replied, “Aye, lad, that it is.”

Flynn shuddered and mumbled something that resolved at the end into “Mathias. ‘S he - have to find him.”

Anduin bit his lip for only a moment before turning to look over his shoulder. Mathias had moved slightly, and his gaze rested on Flynn’s back. “Mathias,” Anduin said. Nothing happened. “Mathias. _Mathias_.”

Mathias’s attention snapped to him and Anduin suppressed his wince. He’d seen pain and despair and fury on people’s faces before, but he’d never have expected to see them so clearly on _Shaw’s_. He made an effort to gentle his voice. “Come here. He needs you.”

He realized his mistake just in time to get the hell out of Mathias’s way.

Mathias dropped heavily to his knees at Flynn’s side, collapsing more than kneeling, and wound their left hands together. “Flynn. Flynn, I’m here, can you hear me?” Anduin was sure he’d have been appalled to know how close his voice came to breaking. There were hundreds of beings who wouldn’t have believed Mathias Shaw capable of the tenderness with which he threaded his other hand into Flynn’s hair, careful to avoid the edge of the bandage. Flynn made a wordless noise and turned into the touch. “It’s alright now.”

“Mathias,” Flynn repeated, forlorn. Difficult though it was to tell in the poorly-lit compartment - the lights were magical, but there weren’t many of them - Anduin thought that Mathias went a shade paler.

“I’m right here,” he murmured.

“His fever needs to come down,” Anduin said, trying to keep his tone matter-of-fact. “But I think I shouldn’t delay in dealing with his eye.” His preliminary scan had shown a worrying degree of healing and he suspected they had hours at best.

“He’s a quick healer,” Thurin agreed, sounding unhappy. Anduin imagined it had been horrible, letting Flynn suffer when there was so little hope.

“The eye’s delicate work, and it’s going to tire me out. If I fix it, I won’t be able to eliminate the infection completely,” Anduin said. Mathias once more didn’t respond immediately, but after a moment he looked up.

“Are you asking me to make a decision?”

“He’s in no condition to, so yes.” Mathias knew the risks, probably better than Anduin did, and Anduin watched him consider and discard them.

“Fix the eye,” he said.

Anduin nodded. “Give me the box, and I’m going to need some help keeping him still.”

Mathias had one hand in his belt pouch when Flynn cried out, “Mathias!” and started trying to sit up.

Anduin stopped himself reaching out as Mathias hastily let Flynn’s hand go to hold him carefully down. “I’m here. I’m right here,” Mathias said, his voice tense as a wire.

Flynn shook his head, and for the first time his eye opened. He stared into Mathias’s face with a thunderous frown. “If you’ve hurt him, I’ll _kill you_ ,” he snarled.

Anduin had never been in the field with Mathias before, so he found the transformation in his demeanor fascinating; after a split second of open devastation, written on his face in letters of fire, calm settled over him and he said mildly, “He’s fine. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

“I need to find him,” Flynn insisted. “Hayaji - it’s my fault, I promised Hayaji - don’t let them do it.”

“We won’t,” Mathias said.

Flynn shook his head again, but the burst of activity seemed to have worn him out and he subsided, still muttering. He didn’t protest Anduin removing his bandage. The wound, thankfully, was still clean. They rearranged themselves with Anduin in Thurin’s place on the next bunk and Mathias and Thurin dedicated to holding Flynn steady.

“This will take about a minute,” Anduin said. “I’ll handle the eye first, then as much of the fever as I can without exhausting myself. It’s likely to feel strange to him. Try not to let him move.”

“As soon as you’re finished we’ll need to leave,” Mathias said. “Keep that in mind.”

Anduin nodded, and reached for the Light.

* * *

Flynn had woken up feeling awful plenty of times in his life, from illness or a beating - thoughts of Freehold could still raise a shudder - or simply drinking too much, but he wasn’t used to it happening quite so often in such a short period. First came a miserable, eternal interval of stumbling along with supporters on each side, wanting nothing more than to be able to lie down; then he _was_ lying down, wondering through the fog if he were dreaming, because the pillow under his head felt like his own pillow in his cabin aboard the _Arva_. He worried at the thought for a while before it occurred to him that he could check.

He pried his eyes open. The room that greeted him certainly looked like his cabin, and even better it had Mathias in it, sitting in a chair with one hand over his face. Those two facts seemed to indicate that he was indeed dreaming.

On the other hand, Flynn felt awful, and Mathias looked worse.

He decided it couldn’t hurt to play along for a bit, and opened his mouth without a clear idea of what he meant to say. What emerged was, “You look terrible.” Mathias looked up at him and Flynn lost all his breath. His matelot’s green eyes swam with tears, and Flynn didn’t think he was imagining that Mathias had gone a bit grey at the temples. “Tides, love, are you alright?”

“Am _I_ -” Mathias choked and bent forward, face in his hands. Alarmed, Flynn attempted to sit up; it didn’t go very well and before he’d gotten far Mathias straightened again. “I’m fine,” he said, in something approximating his normal voice. “You’re the one who had your _eye_ taken out.”

Flynn froze, and blinked - blinked both of his eyes. He shut his right eye and could still see; looked down at his own nose and saw two of it. When he lifted a careful hand to his face he could feel his eye moving under the lid. “What...how?”

“Anduin,” said Mathias.

But if they were aboard the _Arva_ … “You brought _Anduin_ with you to pay my ransom?” Had he been sick that long? Hayaji had said Mathias would have two weeks. For that matter, had Mathias _paid_?

“No. I brought Anduin with me so that he could heal your eye before we killed every Light-forsaken one of those _thieves_ ,” said Mathias. The word was savage, reordering Flynn’s understanding of the ranking of crimes, demoting _murder_ , _espionage_ , and _sedition_ , and moving _stealing something precious from Mathias Shaw_ up to the top.

He hadn’t quite managed to put together a response when someone knocked on their cabin door. “Master Shaw, we’re out of range and the druids are back,” said a voice he didn’t recognise.

“Just a moment.” Mathias took a deep breath and wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Do you want to come up and see this?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Flynn replied. There was clearly a story here that he was going to have to get, but _later_.

They discovered he could walk, with a bit of help, though Flynn had to fight the urge to stop dead and pull Mathias into his arms and simply not let go. On deck, Bess stood at the prow, moving the _Arva_ through sheer force of her Tidesage abilities; the crew were in the rigging, releasing the sails. Flynn looked aft and in the distance lay the _Despair_ , visible mostly by the outline of her running lights. And near the mainmast of the _Arva_ stood Hayaji, his arms tied behind his back at elbow and wrist, with a night elf in rogue’s leathers holding him firmly by the shoulders.

He looked up at Mathias with rage on his furry face. “You _bastard_. My crew will hunt you down for this.”

“No, they won’t,” Mathias said. “Steelspark?”

“Ready,” said the gnome. She held up a complicated gadget that had a large red button in the centre.

“Light her up.”

The button went down, and for a moment that seemed to last forever nothing happened. Then, out among the lights of the _Despair_ came a string of flashes, followed immediately by booms only a little attenuated by distance. Flaming pieces of the other ship fountained into the air, and Hayaji wailed, a long howl of grief. “Oh, but she’s fine,” said Mathias coldly, “I’ve only separated her into pieces. That’s how we do things, right?”

It took nearly a minute for shards of the _Despair_ to stop raining from the sky. Flynn just stood there, gaping, and Mathias had to say his name twice to get his attention. “Can you stand alone?”

“I...let’s give it a try?” It turned out he could, though he hated watching Mathias walk away from him.

Mathias strode over to Hayaji, seized him by the scruff of his neck, and marched him unresisting back to Flynn, then kicked the vulpera in the back of the leg so that he crashed to his knees. Mathias drew a dagger, reversed it with a neat flip, and offered it. Flynn looked down at it, and back up. “You’re the injured party,” Mathias said. Flynn attempted not to shiver at the unintentional echo. “He’s yours.”

Flynn reached for the knife, hesitated, and shook his head. “Piracy carries a death sentence in Kul Tiras,” he said. “Let him hang.”

“Abyss take you, Fairwind!” Hayaji cried, his voice full of furious tears. “We dealt with you fairly!”

Flynn met his eyes. “It’s true, you did. None of us were murdered, or tortured or raped for entertainment. We were fed and watered and given as much dignity as a prisoner can expect. I think you’d even have honoured the deal, if he’d somehow come up with the gold.” He clenched his teeth and looked away until he could go on. “But you were going to flog a nine-year-old, Hayaji. I can’t stomach hangings, but I’ll attend yours and enjoy it.” He lifted his gaze to Mathias’s and said, “Can we go to bed? Please?” He could hear how plaintive he sounded, and he frankly didn’t care.

“Keeshan,” said Mathias.

A burly human man who Flynn vaguely recalled from the _Wind’s Redemption_ said, “Yes, sir?”

“Put the prisoner somewhere he can’t do any harm.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once Keeshan had led Hayaji away, Mathias’s expression softened. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go to bed.”

* * *

Mathias didn’t mean to doze off, but Flynn fell asleep again while Mathias divested himself of his armor. He hadn’t had more than a few hours of sleep, either at once or collectively, since before he and Steelspark had left for Anyport and the sound of Flynn’s breathing in the dim cabin sandbagged him.

Knocking woke him and he slid out from under Flynn’s arm without drawing so much as a disgruntled noise, which worried him a bit. The visitor turned out to be Anduin; Mathias ushered the king inside.

“How is he?” Anduin asked, low-voiced.

“Still too warm and he’s been asleep since we got back in here,” Mathias said. He didn’t have any solid idea how long that had been, but Anduin looked refreshed so it had to be at least an hour or two.

Anduin nodded and said, “I should be able to clear up what’s left, now that I don’t have to worry about conserving energy, and Agent Baskerville or Mr. Storm can help if need be. Thurin is still resting - he was dangerously depleted.”

Somehow Mathias wasn’t surprised that Anduin had learned the druids’ names already. “Should I wake him up?”

“If he’ll be unhappy at waking in the middle of being healed, but otherwise it makes no difference.”

“I think I’d better, then,” Mathias said. He turned towards the bunk, but his conscience prodded him. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until you’ve dealt with Genn when we’re back in Stormwind,” said Anduin, with a flash of a smile. “He didn’t have time to properly express his opinion before we left and I doubt it’s gotten more favorable in the meantime.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”

“Because Genn doesn’t approve, because it was dangerous - or because of what you had to do?”

Startled, Mathias met Anduin’s eyes. The king was a young man, and inexperienced, but neither of those things made him stupid, and he had an intuitive grasp of _people_ to a degree that Mathias had had to consciously cultivate. “Because you had to see what I had to do,” he said. It would hurt, going back to having Anduin treat him like a weapon whose use could only be justified in the worst of circumstances, but Mathias had accepted that pain the moment he’d decided to ask him to come along.

Anduin sighed and said, “You’ve been working for Stormwind since before I was _born_ , Mathias. I know what you do.”

“Knowing and seeing are two different things.”

“I don’t like killing,” Anduin said bluntly. “I will never love a sword because it’s sharp or an arrow because it’s swift or a spell because it’s powerful. But I love the thing those things defend, so I use them if need be.” Mathias didn’t let his expression change. “Knowing that, how can I think less of you for using the weapons you have to defend what you love?”

That was so utterly unlike the conclusion Mathias had expected that he couldn’t muster a reply, and Anduin must have read it on his face. “Wake him up and I’ll get some work done.”

* * *

Anduin firmly declined an escort back to his temporary quarters, and since he only looked tired rather than exhausted Mathias couldn’t bring himself to insist. Besides, there was a limit to how much trouble he could get into walking a few doors down a corridor.

Mathias closed the cabin door on Anduin’s departure and turned, right into Flynn’s arms. He returned the embrace with desperate intensity and they clung to each other. Both of them shook. Mathias couldn’t have made himself let go for anything short of a dragon attack; he buried his face in Flynn’s neck, breathing him in, and felt Flynn doing the same. Minutes passed before Flynn, muffled, said, “I never believed you’d come. I didn’t believe you _could._ I told everyone … I told them we should just be resigned to being marooned somewhere. It was going to be months, maybe years, before I saw you again, if we were ever found at all.” Flynn drew back enough to look into Mathias’s eyes. “You couldn't, Mathias. There was no way anyone was going to let you be that … that vulnerable. No one would let you endanger the Alliance for someone like me.”

“I had no idea what would happen if I didn't come,” Mathias said. “For all I knew they'd sell you all into slavery, and I'd spend the rest of my life looking for some trace of where you'd been sold. And that was the _best_ case - he sent me your _eye_.” Mathias felt again the gutting rush of horror that had come with allowing himself to recognize the contents of the little box. “I think - I think I went mad. If he’d killed you, nothing would have saved him.”

“Don’t know if you noticed, but he’s not saved,” said Flynn. “Because you decided to raid a pirate ship the size of a small city with...how many people?”

“Sixteen, counting Anduin,” Mathias said. He didn’t feel it necessary to clarify what he’d meant; Flynn had a kinder heart than he did. Hayaji’s death had been inevitable from the instant he’d sent the ransom demand, but there were different ways to die. Hanging was vastly preferable to what Mathias would have done if Flynn had been killed.

“You crazy fucker. Everyone thinks _I’m_ the crazy one of us but none of them know the truth.”

“I _had to_ ,” Mathias said, hearing the strain in his own voice. “I need you so damned much. I can’t go back to the life I had before you. I can’t go back to that...that loneliness, that solitude. _I can’t_.”

Flynn raised a hand to cup Mathias’s cheek and said softly, “As long as it’s up to me you’ll never have to.”

Mathias knew better than most people that the time might come when it wasn’t up to either of them, but for now it was a reassurance he needed to hear. He pulled Flynn down by the back of his neck and kissed him with all the desperation of the past week.

The kiss went on until they were both breathless. Mathias let himself drown in it, Flynn’s bare back warm and smooth under his hands, the tiny sounds Flynn made and his scent, salt and soap and perhaps a bit less whiskey than there had been, the first time they’d been so close - in this very cabin, before either of them had known what they would become.

Without pulling away Flynn rucked up the hem of Mathias’s shirt and muttered against his lips, “Take this off. Take it all off, you absolute lunatic, I need to feel your skin against mine.”

Mathias nodded. Letting go was agony but Flynn was right. Mathias needed it too, the intimacy and the feeling of his beloved’s body in his arms with nothing between them. They fumbled hastily through stripping off their clothes, and Mathias took Flynn’s hands to draw him down onto the bunk.

Later there would be frenzy and frantic need, but for now they took their time, relearning each other, twined together. Their hands moved slowly, drawing moans and gasps and half-formed words. Mathias didn’t even try to judge how long it took before their mutual arousal finally became too much to ignore; they lay on their sides, their foreheads touching, and took each other in hand. The pleasure built slowly, like a wave running in to a distant shore, and like a wave the crest broke suddenly and with devastating force, leaving them breathless and trembling.

They drifted to sleep tangled in the sheets and each other.

* * *

The _Bold Arva_ met her fast courier escort having covered less than a third of the distance back to Stormwind. The _Swallowtail_ had been dispatched from Boralus the afternoon before the raid and carried mostly provisions, and a squad of the Seventh Legion to reassure King Greymane that Anduin was being properly guarded. Flynn had a feeling they were going to be dealing with King Greymane’s opinion of proceedings quite a lot when they got back home. Or at least Mathias was; Flynn thought he probably shouldn’t be present for that because hearing Mathias be yelled at didn’t exactly bring out the best in him.

Three days after the rescue, Flynn retired to his cabin mid-afternoon to get some sleep before taking watch. Mathias went along, which was hardly a surprise; he’d been jittery about being out of arm’s reach and Flynn couldn’t say he minded. As he was taking his boots off Flynn paused to think. “How were you going to find us?”

“What?”

Flynn flicked laces out of their grommets and said, “You said the Lord Admiral used my eye to find us and portal you,” and that was _never_ going to not bother him to think about, “but what was the original plan?”

“Oh,” said Mathias. “The man who delivered the ransom demand was going to guide us. I’m glad Jaina was able to help though. We wouldn’t have been in time.”

Flynn mostly kept down the shudder but he imagined Mathias had seen it anyway. “So where is he now?”

“He’s a guest of SI:7. He can stand trial with Hayaji.” Mathias shrugged. “I said I’d let him go if he told me where you were, but he didn’t.”

“Not really his fault you got magic to do it instead,” said Flynn.

“It is his fault that he willingly delivered a ransom demand in the form of your eye. He should count himself lucky I’m not cutting out both of his.”

Flynn pulled off his boot, dropped it on the floor, and sat back, leaning on his hands. This wasn’t the furious snarl of pain from when he’d just woken up; Mathias sounded entirely matter-of-fact. “Rather you didn’t, all things being equal.”

“I know. That’s why I’m not going to.” He sighed. “I’m not a good person, Flynn. If I could have killed them all personally, I would have.”

Flynn shrugged and said, “Hayaji was going to flog Billie, and the crew were going to let him. I can’t say I’m crying about it.” He felt the merest twinge of regret that he hadn’t ordered a search for survivors after the explosion; drowning was a fucking horrific death and he wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. But he’d been too tired, too shocked, and far too numb at the time to even think of mounting a rescue, and sailing near or through burning wreckage on a dark night was no one’s idea of a party even with a top-notch Tidesage aboard.

“I wanted them dead for what they did to you.”

“I know that.” Flynn held out his hand and wiggled his fingers invitingly. Mathias came over and for a few moments they just held hands. “Hayaji said he knew you’d pay because of the picture,” said Flynn at last. “The one from _Stormwind This Week_. All I could think was that I’d be the end of you.”

Mathias shook his head. “After this you’ll be untouchable. No one will come near you unless they intend to kill you anyway, and that...that was always a risk. Will always be.”

“I’ll be the surest bet for a safe cargo on Azeroth. No one’ll risk crossing you.” Flynn got a grip on Mathias’s waist and pulled until Mathias knelt on the edge of the bunk, straddling his lap. “You came for me. I can’t tell you what that means.”

“I love you,” said Mathias. “I’ll always come for you.”

Flynn smiled, thought about it for a second, and felt the smile twist into a smirk. “Promise?”

“Flynn,” Mathias protested, but he was laughing.


End file.
